Author behind the study, University assistant professor Audrey Dallimore, said the last mega-earthquake occurred 313 years ago, calling the area overdue for another quake after sediment samples found the damaging phenomenons occur every 500 to 1,000

AndreMA:Author behind the study, University assistant professor Audrey Dallimore, said the last mega-earthquake occurred 313 years ago, calling the area overdue for another quake after sediment samples found the damaging phenomenons occur every 500 to 1,000

I thought that 313 was less than 500, but what the hell do I know?

It's 500 metric years, so it still works. Author should have been more clear.

AndreMA:Author behind the study, University assistant professor Audrey Dallimore, said the last mega-earthquake occurred 313 years ago, calling the area overdue for another quake after sediment samples found the damaging phenomenons occur every 500 to 1,000

I thought that 313 was less than 500, but what the hell do I know?

This was the part I was confused with. It's as if people don't actually think about what they say.

moos:AndreMA: Author behind the study, University assistant professor Audrey Dallimore, said the last mega-earthquake occurred 313 years ago, calling the area overdue for another quake after sediment samples found the damaging phenomenons occur every 500 to 1,000

I thought that 313 was less than 500, but what the hell do I know?

It's 500 metric years, so it still works. Author should have been more clear.

/sarcasm impaired disclaimer: no, not serious

We used to have a metric year. Ever wonder why the Latin roots for September, October, November, and December denote the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th month, but those months are the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th?

Various First Nations in the area, along with the Japanese, will note that the Cascadia fault zone tends to rip rather more frequently than "once every 11,000 years" (more like every 500 years or so for Cascadia proper--hell, there are still stories among Pacific Coast First Nations of the 1700 Cascadia quake and how it wiped entire villages off the map, which were generally dismissed as "silly NDN stories" until confirmed by both Japanese records AND geological records).

The Pacific Rim as a whole tends to throw a nine-pointer about every 50 years or so, and sometimes only once every five to ten years (the two largest quakes ever recorded were only within four years of each other, in different parts of the Ring of Fire).

Depending on when and where the mega-thrust quake happens, it has a high likelihood of ripping from one edge of the plate (near Vancouver Island) all the way to the other (near North California). That level of event would as long as 8-12 minutes.

AndreMA:Author behind the study, University assistant professor Audrey Dallimore, said the last mega-earthquake occurred 313 years ago, calling the area overdue for another quake after sediment samples found the damaging phenomenons occur every 500 to 1,000

I thought that 313 was less than 500, but what the hell do I know?

Came here to question this and other poorly communicated points in this article. What a waste of bandwidth!

A few years ago, while taking a tour of the USGS in Menlo Park, CA, the tour guide told us that the Hawaiian Islands grow at a regular, predictable rate, and that because of that growth there is a recurring land slide, underwater, along the flank of the growing mountain. When it happens, he said, a 600 foot wall of water moving at 160 miles per hour smashes in to the west coast of the USA. Then he told us that the next one will deposit the Golden Gate Bridge in Sacramento (they are about 1 hour 15 minutes apart by fast car, when there is no traffic). This landslide occurs about every 100,000 years. The last one was about 100,000 years ago. Sleep tight, California coastal residents.

A few years ago, while taking a tour of the USGS in Menlo Park, CA, the tour guide told us that the Hawaiian Islands grow at a regular, predictable rate, and that because of that growth there is a recurring land slide, underwater, along the flank of the growing mountain. When it happens, he said, a 600 foot wall of water moving at 160 miles per hour smashes in to the west coast of the USA. Then he told us that the next one will deposit the Golden Gate Bridge in Sacramento (they are about 1 hour 15 minutes apart by fast car, when there is no traffic). This landslide occurs about every 100,000 years. The last one was about 100,000 years ago. Sleep tight, California coastal residents.

The West Coast is always doomed.

Yellowstone will blow. (600K years)The Cascadia fault will blow. (1000 years)Hawaii will blow. (100K years)Rainier will blow (1000 years)California will periodically blow up with moderate earthquakes (30-40 years in each big city).

/Of course, the midwest is also doomed because of New Madrid, so that's nice.//We really haven't been keeping records of the North American periodic events for very long.

Second, it's not going to "get rid" of California. 80% of the state will stay where it is. The rest is going to end up offshore in a million years or so. And do you know what that means? All those meth heads in Bakersfield are going to have beachfront property. Is that what you want??